The ‘Clippers Curse’ continues after L.A. blows 13-point 4th quarter lead to Steph Curry, Warriors in play-in collapse

There are collapses, and then there are Los Angeles Clippers collapses. 

The latest chapter of the Clippers Curse was authored on Wednesday night at the Intuit Dome when L.A. unraveled in the fourth quarter, blowing a 13-point lead to the Golden State Warriors that ultimately ended their season. 

The Clippers latest meltdown felt so familiar, so painfully on-brand, that it felt less like a loss and more like a highlight reel of the franchise’s greatest hits of heartbreak. 

The Clippers led their do-or-die elimination play-in game by for 85% of the game. A majority of it by double-digits. They were up by 13 with nine minutes left, and they still found a way to lose. 

“I’m pissed off,” said Clippers head coach Ty Lue after the season-ending loss. “We had the game in our hands. To be up 13 in the fourth quarter we have to finish that game.” 

He’s right. But finishing off a diminished Warriors team playing without Jimmy Butler and Moses Moody is not what the Clippers do. It’s not in their DNA. This is a franchise that keeps changing jerseys, logos, and arenas more than leaves change colors. 

But in Los Angeles, the ending never changes. 

On Wednesday night the Clippers didn’t just blow a big fourth quarter lead to the Warriors, they surrendered it piece by piece, like a team unsure if they even deserved to win in the first place. They committed 18 turnovers, gifting Golden State 26 points. They allowed a 43-point fourth quarter. 

With their season on the line, they couldn’t even execute an inbounds pass. Possession after possession, chance after chance, it all slipped through the Clippers’ fingers like sand.

“On the inbounds we threw the ball away,” said Lue. “That was a big momentum shift for them.”

The momentum didn’t shift on that turnover, it shifted when No. 30 across the floor put on his cape and took over. 

Steph Curry, who only returned from a knee injury four games ago, scored 27 of his 35 points in the second half. Each bucket louder than the last, until his dagger three with 50 seconds left echoed through a building that had turned against the home team. As he drilled the go-ahead three and fell into the front row, the arena erupted in chants of “MVP!” and “Warriors…”

This may have been a road game on paper, but it sure as hell didn’t sound like it in the arena.

“When he’s on the floor, you always have a chance,” said Draymond Green of Curry.

The Clippers had every chance to win too. Maybe a dozen or more chances to put the game away. That’s what makes this sting. That’s what makes this different—and yet exactly the same.

Because we’ve seen this before.

We saw it in 2015 when a 3-1 lead vanished against Houston. We saw it again in the 2020 bubble when another 3-1 cushion disintegrated against Denver. We saw it last season in a Game 7 collapse in Denver. And now this—another double-digit lead, another fourth-quarter fade, another season ending not with a fight, but with a shrug.

Here in Los Angeles, we call it the “Clippers Curse.”

And it’s real. 

Even Kawhi Leonard couldn’t escape it. The stoic star, who had his best season in two years, looked shell-shocked in the fourth quarter. When the game mattered most, he disappeared into the margins, picked clean by Green on a possession that could have breathed life into the Clippers, instead they were left gasping for air. 

“Draymond is a hall of fame defender. It was hard to get shots up,” Leonard admitted.

Hard isn’t supposed to mean impossible. The Clippers didn’t lose because of bad luck or coincidence. This is who they are. 

Only the Clippers could start the season 6-21, and then complete the single greatest in-season turnaround in NBA history only to choke away a 13-point lead in the final minutes of it. 

And the embarrassment doesn’t stop at the final buzzer. The loss drops them into the lottery—except their pick belongs to the Oklahoma City Thunder who now have a 9.4% chance of a top-four selection and a 2% chance of the number one overall. The rich get richer while the Clippers stare into another offseason with nothing but questions, and an NBA investigation into Leonard-Aspiration and salary cap circumvention looming over their head like a dark cloud. 

Even their past came back to mock them. Chris Paul—discarded midseason, unceremoniously shipped out before getting the retirement tour he deserved—watched from afar and posted the internet’s coldest meme, the digital equivalent of showing up in a black suit just to confirm the burial.

Petty? Sure.

Accurate? Absolutely.

This was supposed to be a new era for the Clippers. A new building. A new culture. A new hope. It was supposed to lift the curse, not continue it.

Benjamin Franklin once famously said that nothing can be certain in life but death and taxes. The Clippers have added a third certainty—finding the most painful way possible to lose when it matters most.

The curse didn’t just follow them to Inglewood.

It beat them to the door and let itself in.

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